Snowed In
by Archangel's Rifle
Summary: Shepard receives a message from her mother asking when she's going to visit again. She decides it's about time for a shore leave. Her and Garrus stay at her home and get snowed in.


(Please be nice. It's 4 AM and I'm writing. Not a good mix. xD)

Title: Snowed In

Genre: Romance

Rating: T (just to be safe)

Characters: Garrus, Arianna Shepard (Paragon/Adept/Spacer/Sole Survivor)

Commander Shepard was in her cabin when she recieved a message on her private terminal from her mother, Hannah Shepard.

She read it quickly, because she kept recieving messages from Councillor Velarn talking about how Reapers didn't exsist. How she wished she could block his messages.

Her mother wanted to know when she was going to visit again.

Shepard sighed. She was too busy for a shore leave, but, she figured that the crew really did deserve one.

After replying to her mother's message, she made the announment they the crew was going to have shore leave in two days for a week. Everyone cheered.

Afterwards, Shepard took the elevator down to deck 3. She walked to the forward batteries to meet with Garrus, recieving many 'thanks, Commander!'s on her way. She opened the door. Garrus turned around to see her, and the door shut behind her.

"Hey. That was nice of you to offer the crew shore leave." Garrus told her, doing the turian version of a smile.

"Thanks, Garrus." she smiled right back.

"So, why all of a sudden?" he asked.

"Well, if you really want to know, it's because my mother asked when I was going to be able to visit her again. Figured that since nothing's really going on since we destroyed the Collectors, we might as well take some vacation." Shepard answered him honestly.

"Because your mother asked you?" he chuckled. "Well, alright, Shepard."

"...And I also figured it would be a nice time for her to get to know about you." she smiled at him.

"You mean, you haven't even told her yet?" he asked.

"No, not yet... but, hey, she's really nice, I'm sure she'll love you, Garrus." Shepard smiled. "Alright, I'll let you get back to whatever you were doing." she said, turning and walking away.

Garrus watched her, then turned back around to look at his console.

Garrus was walking with Shepard to her mother's home, since Shepard's home was close by, and that's where they were staying on this leave. As they were walking, he noticed a lot of people staring. He didn't know if it was because there was a turian on earth or if they recongnized Shepard. He ignored it, and continued walking and talking with his love.

Hannah Shepard was standing outside on the large porch, waving at them both.

"Hey, mom." Shepard said, hugging her mother.

"Hello, Arianna. I missed you." She said, hugging her daughter back tightly. "Who's this?" she said politley, looking at Garrus.

"Oh, mom, this is Garrus..." she started, looking a bit nervous, a very rare expression for her. "He's my...uhhh... boyfriend." she smiled, and Garrus did too, and put an arm around her.

Her mom looked surprised, but smiled again. "About time you find a guy." she joked. "Well, please, come in, come in!" she said, opening the house's door and leading them inside.

They sat down at the kitchen's table and talked about what had been going on the last couple of months, mainly about Garrus' and Shepard's relationship. They talked for hours, and then Shepard and Garrus left because it was getting late, and very cold outside. Of course, Shepard's mom kept nagging at them to stay warm and wear coats on the walk home.

As they were walking, snow flakes started falling slowly to the ground. Garrus had only seen snow a few times in his life, so he was impressed. So was Shepard. She hated the cold, but loved it when it snowed and made white blankets over the ground. "Yay! It's snowing!" Shepard said excitedly, and smiled.

"Nice." Garrus said, holding his arm out a bit infront of him, catching some snow on his gloved hand.

They walked a bit quicker to Shepard's home, because as much of a nice sight the snow was, it was really cold.

Shepard opened up the door quickly, and ran in with Garrus.

"Chilly out there." she smiled, taking off her coat and hanging it up.

"It wasn't so bad." Garrus replied.

"Right." Shepard smiled at him. "Well, it's late, and I'm tired. Wanna call it a night, Garrus?" she asked.

"Sure. Sleep would be nice." he smiled, and followed her to the bedroom.

Garrus woke up first the next morning, a lot later than he was used to, but still pretty early. He looked down at Shepard in his arms, still asleep. He slowly moved away so he wouldn't wake her up. Finally getting up, he walked over to the window, and opened up the curtains a bit. The ground was covered in snow, and there was still a lot of flakes falling from the gray clouds.

He got dressed quickly, dressing in something a bit warmer than he usually did. It's true that turian body heat was higher than humans', but they still got cold. He walked onto the porch and leaned sat down on the steps, watching the snow.

He wasn't even paying attention to anything; he jumped a bit when Shepard walked up behind him and put a hand on his shoulder.

"Good morning." she said to him, shivering a bit from the cold.

"Morning." he said, standing up, and nuzzling her cheek gently.

"Quite a snowfall last night." she said, hugging onto him.

"Yeah. Looks like it's gonna keep snowing for awhile." he said, looking up at the sky.

"Yeah, probably." she let go of him. "I'll be back out in a second. Wait here." she told him, walking inside. He waited for her.

When she came back out, she was dressed in proper winter-wear.

"Well, don't you look cute?" he teased.

"Oh, shush." she giggled. She walked off the porch into the snow, leaned down, picked some of the snow up, and shaped it into a ball, and turned back to Garrus. Only then did he realize what she was doing.

_WHAM!_

Snowball hit him right in the face.

He whiped the snow from his face, smirking. "If that's how you want to play, Shepard, then fine." he stepped off the porch, grabbing some snow, and throwing it at her. Hit her on the side of her head. She laughed, picking up more snow, and threw it at him. He did the same. They had an epic snowball fight, but Shepard won in the end. Only because Garrus let her. Or, that's what he tried convincing her.

They went back inside. Shepard made herself some hot cocoa, and Garrus made himself something similar that was safe for him to drink.

They sat on her couch, enjoying their drinks, and eachother.

They ended up falling asleep, cuddling.

This time, Shepard woke up first. She looked at Garrus, and nuzzled him gently. She gently broke out of his grasp, got up and stretched. It was still dark outside. She walked to her backdoor and turned on the back porch's light. The snow was really deep, and it was like a blizzard outside. "Wow, that's a lot of snow..." she said quietly to herself.

She stood there until Garrus woke up soon after. He walked up to her, putting his arms around her.

"Morning, Garrus." She smiled at him and hugged him.

He looked out at the snow. "Wow. Pretty bad snowstorm." he said to himself.

"Yeah. Looks like we're snowed in..." she looked up at him.

"I don't mind that at all." he smiled, and she returned the smile.

They walked over to the couch again, Shepard hugging him tightly. This was going to be the best shore leave ever.


End file.
